


Remember, Green's Your Color

by galacticproportions



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Botany, M/M, Non-Sexual Coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:53:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticproportions/pseuds/galacticproportions
Summary: Life in the service of the Forest God—the horned king, the Master, the king of the wood—was mostly boring, sometimes horrible, and occasionally confusing.A priest who doesn't believe in the god he's been raised to serve is selected for a ritual to harness that god's power. It doesn't go as planned.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 16
Kudos: 28





	Remember, Green's Your Color

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



> Prompted by my dear gloss, with free borrowings from _Princess Mononoke_ , _The Tombs of Atuan_ by Ursula K. Le Guin, and a touch of "Tam Lin." 
> 
> "Aliveness," life and death together, I learned from _Matter and Desire_ by Andreas Weber. 
> 
> The title is from "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks.

At night, the forest breathes out.

At night, if you saw him in the shadows, you might think he was a man, except that the night peoples, the bats and their moth prey, the worms and their skunk menaces, the mouse and the owl, don't flee from his step. His skin grayed out by their eyes, catching starlight, slipping under shade. Antlers that could just be branches.

*

Life in the service of the Forest God—the horned king, the Master, the king of the wood—was mostly boring, sometimes horrible, and occasionally confusing. What partly made it confusing was that of the two high priests, one obviously believed in the Forest God and one obviously didn't.

From his earliest days in the Temple the young priest had tried to train himself not to show uncertainty or hesitation, since if you did you were punished for it. If something seemed contradictory, he tried to understand it, until he either gave up or wasn't confused anymore.

But with the Forest God, whose service he was technically in, he couldn't seem to do either. All the evidence seemed to be in favor of giving up: there was no Forest God, so there was nothing to understand. The sacrifices they laid on the altar stone did disappear, but the forest was full of crows and raccoons, and the tributes tarnished in the treasure room. The conquests and raids were just an attempt to consolidate earthly power, and the red-haired high priest was a power-hungry bastard, loving dominion for its own sake, like the dormitory bullies on a larger scale. They lied, too.

The red-haired high priest paid lip service to the Forest God so that he could control the masked high priest, who pretty clearly believed but was also pretty clearly unhinged in other respects. The young priest and his fellows—those who'd survived—had also quickly trained themselves to back out of a room without being seen or heard.

There should have been no stirring of the hairs on the young priest's arms when he walked out into the clearing to check the altar. There should have been no feeling of being watched as he returned to the Temple with a dutiful tracing of the splotches of chicken blood that remained, in which the high priests claimed to read auguries: the best village to raid next for novices or which prayers the horned king would prefer to hear at the dark of the moon. The blood splotches said nothing to the young priest. The prayers had stopped stirring his heart long ago. And the raids—he tried not to think about that.

There should have been no dreams where he stepped into the shadow of the woods as though into someone's arms.

*

In daylight, the forest breathes in.

Daylight flows into his pores and out through his leaves; lifting his face, he is transfigured. His limbs are tree limbs, vision branches, consciousness diffuses. Fungal tissue laces through plant tissue: which is muscle, which is nerve? Microbes, ions, aromatic esters: the forest murmurs to itself of all within it, touching, constituting. Birds move like thoughts between the sore and stunted places and the meristems, the sites of flourishing.

*

One thing that must have been nice for the high priests about there being no Forest God (the young priest thought) is that anytime something didn't happen the way they said it would, they could always claim the other priests and novices and slaves hadn't done enough, hadn't followed the instructions correctly to placate or praise. Win-win for them, lose-lose for everyone else at the Temple.

The forest did seem a little...drained, or strained, that summer. Caterpillars had attacked a bunch of trees near the Temple, leaving them as bare as early spring, and the leaves that remained had a shrunken, dusty quality. They weren't encouraged to know too much about the forest _as_ a forest, so the young priest wasn't sure what he was seeing or what it meant. Just because there was no such thing as a bad omen didn't mean these changes weren't bad _signs,_ signs that something bad was happening.

And things weren't going well for the Temple either: a raided village in the foothills had put up an unexpected fight, and attempts to dam the stream flowing out of the forest's southern edge had failed for the third time. The masked high priest, especially, seemed gloomier and jumpier even than usual, handed out whippings and strictures of silence left and right, decimated the chicken population.

Then he started calling priests and even novices into the sanctum one at a time, which wasn't a _good_ sign.

“Eminence,” the priest said, folding himself into the agonizing obeisance prescribed by Temple discipline.

“The Forest God is displeased,” the high priest intoned. Rumors flew around the dormitories, but no one knew whether the distortion in his voice was from the mask or something else. “He is withdrawing from us, and we must draw him back.” One gloved hand rested on a thick book, loose-spined with foxed pages. “I've found a way. In these scriptures. But it requires a participant.”

The young priest stared at the floor.

“A willing participant,” the high priest said, reaching down. “Look at me.”

He felt his chin lifted, his eyes searched, his mind—

“You've been dreaming,” the echoing voice said. The young priest kept quiet. Anybody could say that kind of thing, and have a fifty-fifty chance of being right.

The masked face hung above him like a heavy moon. The gloved hands split the book before him. “It's a translation of an older text. Look closely. Do you see?”

A figure, no, two, one spread on an altar, clasping the other close, lines or rays pouring from them into the robe-draped figures standing in wait. He squinted at the old-fashioned script, trying to understand what would happen to him.

“The words you'll speak are here. Your dreams are telling me that you're the one to speak them. Will you do it?”

At first he'd felt as though the mask were speaking, not the man behind it. Now he felt the opposite: the high priest had made his face into a mask, had made his will into an instrument. Pressing forward, heavy and cold and metallic, it met nothing: no resistance. Not enough in his life at the Temple to resist with, to live for. No life beyond the Temple. No way out.

“Yes, Eminence,” he said.

“You will bring us the horned king's power,” the voice behind the mask said. “At midsummer. One way or the other.”

Three long days until the longest day. In his dreams, drifts of pollen fell on the backs of his hands, on the tops of his bare feet, pale gold against earth brown.

*

There is struggle in the forest: eater and eaten fight for life, branches in the canopy for light and roots for water. There is partnership and sharing: plant and fungus work together to make it possible for both to eat, scavengers and bacteria devour what predators leave, some saplings grow best in shade and others in sun. Of these, the wholeness of the forest is made, and in its wholeness, the forest is. Against attempts to use that wholeness, it fights by being. It _stands for_ being, for aliveness, where life and death meet.

*

The altar stone was rough and cold beyond what he'd expect from stone at night. It soaked the warmth from his naked back, dizzying him, as though he were bleeding out. _It's just because I haven't eaten,_ he tried to reassure himself _._ The cords at his chest and thighs and ankles didn't bite unless—until—he tried to move.

There was the sound of footsteps retreating: the high priests' stalking treads, the shuffling of their entourage.

The affronted silence of the interrupted night forest.

The soft resumption of rustling, pattering, snuffling. Sounds skittered over his skin like a breeze. The hairs on his arms lifted, and he knew he was afraid.

Whose was the power? The Temple's, the forest's?

The moon rose, waxing gibbous, washing everything with pale-gold, warmthless light that slowly edged into silver and marked the edge of the clearing with restless shadows.

He might have fallen asleep. He must have, because when he looked again, the moon had nearly crossed the clearing. His mouth was so dry that he tried to lick the dew off his lips.

No cessation of the night noises, but an addition, one bare foot after another. And a figure stepped onto the grass, vines or shadows unwinding from his skin.

If all the ropes binding him had fallen away at that moment and the stone released its terrible gravity, the priest could not have moved. The figure came closer, and against the setting moon, antlers showed sharp and clear above the curls of his hair.

The young priest whispered, “No.”

“No?” the figure said, sounding surprised. And then: “Shit. So what are you doing here? You guys are sacrificing humans now?”

The priest tried to remember the ritual words. Something about welcome, something about offering. He tried to say them, but his throat was dry. The antlered head shook like a branch tossing. “Hold on,” said the resonant voice, and the horned king— _the horned king—_ turned his back on the stone and retreated to the edge of the clearing, moonlight bunching and sliding over the naked shapes of him. He squatted down, murmured something, stood up, returned. “Here's some water,” he said. “Not a lot. Open your mouth.”

Water trickled from the dewy leaf over the priest's tongue and down his throat, both musty and sharp. It refreshed him. He could speak, but he no longer wanted to say what he had been told to say. “I didn't think you were real,” he said.

A snort, like a stag's. “I'm real. What about you, _are_ you a sacrifice? What did they bring you out here for?”

Was he just too far gone for anything but the truth? Was he dying, or coming to life? “I'm supposed to be bait.”

“For me?”

“Yeah.” Despite the water, despite the thrill of the horned king's presence and the further surprise of his kindness, talking was an effort. The cold of the altar seemed to swallow his voice and steal the breath he needed. “There was something in one of the scriptures, an old one. Something about trapping the Forest God to unleash his power. Your power, I guess.”

“So you're supposed to trap me. Are you really tied?”

“Most of me is. But the ropes on my arms are just lying there, so I can—”

“Grab me.”

“Right.”

“It's appealing,” the horned king said, making the priest wonder if he'd heard correctly, “but I assume there's a catch. Also I assume you weren't supposed to tell me that. You couldn't hold me, even in this form, if it was just you. But the stone—you're feeling it, right?”

He was feeling it. “I don't think you should even touch me.” The tears trickled from the far corners of his eyes and down into his ears, clogging sound for a moment. “I didn't think any of it was real.”

“What if I just cut the ropes and let you walk? I can probably do that without touching you.”

“They'd kill me. I'm pretty sure they would. _One way or the other,_ they said.” Also he wasn't at all sure that he could walk anymore. He tried lifting his hand, just to see. It felt like the altar stone was on top of it instead of under it.

“Sounds like them,” the horned king agreed. “I can't just leave you here.” He shook his head again, that branchlike spring and heave. “I think a lot more like a human in the dark. When are they coming back?”

“Sunrise.”

“Sunrise! But—” He stopped, and in his posture was a wholly inhuman attention, the alertness of a wild creature sizing up a threat to its life and a possibility of escape. “Can you tell me _exactly_ what the thing said? The, the scripture?”

The priest cast his mind back, brought up the image of the pages. The words swam again before him: “'One who has been awakened shall go willing to the altar, and by holding fast to the King at break of day shall free his power.' It's a translation.”

The horned king laughed, and in it was the sound of destruction and of the earth waking up. “Listen. I change form at sunrise. Change a lot. It might be a little—alarming. But I think we'll be okay, if you can trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“Yeah?” A smile in his voice, now. “Good. Dawn's coming. Smell the air? It won't be long.”

“You didn't ask if you could trust me.”

“You could've just done what they told you,” the horned king pointed out. The moon was behind the trees now; the priest focused on his voice and the warmth that he should have been too far away to feel. “I feel like I should say more about what's going to happen if we do the thing I'm planning. So you're not surprised. And to make sure you're okay with it.”

“ _Okay_ with it?” the priest repeated, his voice cracking. “With maybe not dying, you mean? With you maybe not—whatever it is they're trying to—”

“Yeah, that. But—do you want some more water?”

“No thanks.”

“I know you'll probably say yes no matter what,” the horned king said, “because, well. I just don't want—I mean, they tied you _up_ out here.”

If he _had_ believed in the Forest God, or any god (the young priest thought) he would have believed him to be certain, inexorable, sufficient unto himself. “Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me.”

*

Brown-robed figures coagulated out of the end of the night, heavy incense drowning out the smell of coming dawn. They filed into the clearing and spread out to circle the altar stone where the young priest was feigning a trance that threatened, every few minutes, to become real and pull him under. The other priests stood far enough apart for someone to pass between them, but only just. Other than their shuffling and breathing, there was silence: no animals, no birds, no wind. The sky was slate gray, dove gray, colorless. And then, again, the sound of bare feet, and a naked almost-human figure stepping from the shadow of the trees.

The horned king approached the altar as warily as if he hadn't been standing beside it for most of the night, as if the sight of the man spread across it were strange to him and unexpected. Behind him, the circle tightened. His nostrils flared, and there was hunger in his face.

In spite of exhaustion and fasting and weakness and fear and the remnants of his disbelief, the priest's body responded to that hunger, his guts yearning and his cock stirring. Fear of a different kind struck him as he thought, _Has he forgotten who I am and what we said we'd do?_ And within that fear was a kind of luxurious surrender, a thrill that rolled through him as the Forest God leaned over him, placed a hand on either side of his bound chest, _leapt,_ and lay on him full length—and almost instantly collapsed.

A harsh intake of breath ran around the robed and waiting circle.

The horned king panted, feeble, boneless, and the priest could barely lift both arms to encircle him. He was heavy, so heavy, the strength and the life seeping out of him, out of them both—

An edge of fire rose over the line of the far hills.

“Hold on to me,” the horned king said, and burst into bloom.

His lips felt like lips against the priest's, but only for a second. Then they were the wax of flower buds, a beard of leaves, a body heaving and spreading, becoming huge and green, around the priest, inside him. The scents of soil, of hot dry leaves, of rot, surrounded them and wafted out from them. Sunlight rushed into their skin, replenishing their strength.

Where was the power? In him? In the forest? Whose arms were spreading, hair coiling like vines, ropes falling away or absorbed into bark and cambium layer as he stretched toward the sun, leaving the altar behind, cock springing, step steady, vaguely aware that the fast-bodied human creatures with their clotted spirits were drawing back in amazement or fear—Wind blew a gesture through him, of dismissal and contempt, and left him rising free.

No words were spoken. None were needed. The circle broke. The priest of the forest walked on into his power, into the trees, light streaming through him, the soles of his feet speaking with the moss.

*

Much later, when the long midsummer day drew to its close, the young priest opened his eyes in the forest's arms. The two of them were sitting propped against an oak, and the horned king was nuzzling his hair. “Fuzzy,” he said dreamily. “You okay?”

“'A _little_ alarming,' you said.”

“Yeah, you seemed real alarmed back there. Anyway it isn't alarming to me, I do it every morning.”

“You wake up with a hard-on every morning too?” _A god,_ the priest thought fleetingly, _I'm saying this to a god._ The body behind his was solid and warm in the cool night air, definitely man-shaped, but his own skin still tingled with holding the power of the forest, the power of the sun and of death.

“More in springtime,” the horned king said gravely, shifting, and settled the priest back against his chest. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mm.”

“You didn't think I was real. So you must've thought they were going to kill you no matter what.”

“Yeah.”

“Then why did you agree to—”

“It didn't seem to matter anymore,” the priest said slowly. “Or, no, it was like there were things that mattered, but I couldn't get anywhere near them. I would dream about—” He stopped, because he was being kissed, his neck craned back, the pulse of life beating green in his throat.

“Sun's almost up again,” the horned king murmured, later still. “You should sleep. I'll hold you.”

“I can't sleep all day. Can I walk around?”

“Sure. I'll still be holding you, if you do that.” A smile he could feel against his cheek. “You can't get lost. There's food growing around, the stream's over there, you can shit anywhere except near the stream...I think that's it. All the berries at this time of year are okay for humans except the white ones.”

“Can I ask _you_ something?”

“Yeah, but make it quick.” The sky over the hills was paling, the night sounds quieting, a few birds tuning up.

There were a thousand practical (what about winter?) and metaphysical (will you feel it when I eat the berries?) questions he wanted to ask, but he'd been assured, over and over, into his neck and against his mouth and along the crease of hip and thigh, that they had time. “If you can't touch the altar, what happened to the chickens?”

The horned king laughed. “The stone doesn't bother any of the parts of me. The raccoons and the crows and everybody are always happy when it's chicken day.”

“I _knew_ it was raccoons,” the priest said, and closed his eyes.


End file.
